Paths to New Horizons - Virginia Tech · for inventing our future, embodied in the strategic plan “A Plan for a New Horizon: Envisioning Virginia Tech 2012-2018.” Looking back,

New HorizonsPaths to

Annual Report2012-13

Paths to New HorizonsSection name or title

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Because of the dedication, talent, hard work, and spirit of amazing faculty, staff, students, and friends of the university, a number of outstanding things have hap-pened in the intervening years, and most of our goals have been achieved. It is fitting, then, to transition to new leadership as the university embarks on a new blueprint for inventing our future, embodied in the strategic plan “A Plan for a New Horizon: Envisioning Virginia Tech 2012-2018.”

Looking back, the past 14 years have been have been by far the highlight of my 40-year career at Virginia Tech. In 2000, we set a goal to become one of the top research universities in the country. As a result, our research funding increased $192 million to $454 million. At the same time, we moved into developing areas of research — such as human health and sustainability — that were barely on our radar 15 years ago.

We adopted a business model that in-vested in seven large centralized research institutes. This format allowed Virginia Tech

to compete for and win large-scale multidis-ciplinary contracts. At the same time, while we did not envision a relationship with Car-ilion Clinic in 2000, we seized the oppor-tunity to partner with them to establish the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine. The adjacent Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute is conducting groundbreaking work in brain research and other areas.

In 2000, we were already attracting high-caliber students, but we set a goal to seek out scholars of ever-increasing ac-ademic abilities and more diversity while also making sure that all who gained ad-mission could afford Virginia Tech. Since that time, overall enrollment has grown by 3,200, the average high school GPA of en-tering students has risen from 3.54 to 3.92, and underrepresented undergraduate en-rollment has increased by 55 percent. We have expanded our financial aid programs, created the Funds for the Future initiative, and completed a major fundraising cam-paign, surpassing its $1 billion goal.

Early in my presidency, Tech faced a long list of critical space needs, and still does to a lesser degree. Since 2000, we have added or are constructing more than 3 million square feet of space valued at more than a billion dollars, primarily for new classrooms and instructional space, research, student services, and athletics.

One of the critical shortcomings we faced was a lack of space for the fine and performing arts; now we have Theatre 101 and since the end of the fiscal year, we have completed the magnificent Moss Arts Center. Other notable additions include The Inn at Virginia Tech and Conference Center, the Holtzman Alumni Center, south- and west-side expansions to Lane Stadium, Signature Engineering Building, Latham Hall, three buildings for the Insti-tute for Critical Technology and Applied Science, the Virginia Bioinformatics Insti-tute complex, the Virginia Tech Research Center — Arlington, several residence halls, and more.

When I was inaugurated as the 15th president of Virginia Tech in 2000, I did what

many new presidents seek to do — I proposed major priorities that I thought would

form the outline of a horizon that the university community could focus on in its

drive to excel in all three areas essential to a land-grant institution: teaching and

learning; research and discovery; and service and engagement.

Message from President Charles W. Steger

VIRGINIA TECH | 2012-13 Annual Report

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Leaving the Big East was not part of our plans in 2000, but in 2004 we took advantage of the opportunity to realize a 50-year-old dream to join the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). Since then, we’ve won four ACC football titles and, more importantly, raised the caliber of ath-letics in general and the national profile of the university.

We also imagined a new direction for the land-grant university mission, helping to create Southside Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Learning and Research in Dan-ville, thus marrying the three-part mission of outreach, instruction, and research with high-tech initiatives and local funding.

The years since 2000 haven’t been without adversity. The nation has suffered through Sept. 11, 2001, and two reces-sions, and the university has weathered severe state appropriation reductions. The tragedy of April 16, 2007, was an unprece-dented and unimaginable event that tested the mettle of the Hokie Nation.

But through those years, we followed a plan. We seized opportunities that we could not have foreseen. And we have been successful. Together, we laid the groundwork for the “Plan for a New

Horizon” that will guide the university’s future. And in this annual report covering the 2012-13 year, you will see numerous examples of how we’ve already taken steps toward that horizon.

As a three-time graduate of this insti-tution, I am grateful for the opportunities for leadership and personal fulfillment that Virginia Tech has afforded me. And even as I prepare to step down, I am eager to see the future unfold — because I am assured of the university’s guiding characteristics: Virginia Tech is a dynamic institution with an indomitable spirit, an entrepreneurial culture, the creativity and the ability to leverage our strengths, and a willingness to take calculated risks that sets us apart from other universities and propels us forward. The promise of this university eclipses all the challenges.

Since President Charles W. Steger stepped in to lead Virginia Tech in 2000, the university has added or started constructing 3 million square feet of essential teaching, research, living, and athletic space, including the impressive Signature Engineering Building (below). Another addition, the Moss Arts Center, will help attract more luminaries like Toni Morrison (left), who was honored in Blacksburg in 2012.

Message from President Steger


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Even as President Charles W. Steger leaves the helm of Virginia Tech, his imprint on the university will carry on in many ways, including those in the newest strategic plan, “A Plan for a New Horizon 2012-2018.”

Crafted by 60 people who represent every facet of the university and who put 10 months into gathering input, the plan is guided by four structuring challenges that affect the entire university:

• the implications of global interdependence;• the challenges of a data-driven society;• meeting research expectations; and• the continuing need to focus on organizational efficiency and flexibility.

Following are a number of the points in the plan that will pave Virginia Tech’s path to the future and help the university address the challenges of tomorrow. In this year’s Annual Report, you will also see ways in which some of the critical areas were already being addressed in 2012-13.

• We will be characterized by increased engagement in many dimensions throughout the international arena, including undergraduate and graduate education and research partnerships.

• We will continue expansion of graduate education, particularly in the STEM-H (sci-ence, technology, engineering, math, and health) disciplines.

• We will look to create special “faculties” in the health sciences and in computational/informational sciences.

• We will continue to invest in a comprehensive educational portfolio in which the arts, humanities, business, and social sciences have an essential role.

• Undergraduate education, characterized by a “hands-on, minds-on” philosophy, will connect real-life experience with academic concepts through research experiences or experiential learning.

• In the interests of efficiency, adaptability, and global competitiveness, we must consid-er new combinations of majors and minors and encourage students to double-major. E-learning must be an important component of such a strategy.

• We have identified certain themes to undergird our research and outreach expansion — security, resilience, health, and sustainability. These themes will inform business, industry, and policy-relevant research.

• Most importantly, we strive for excellence and must continue to stress quality in our students, faculty, and institutional performance.

Few documents or processes are more important

to the overall organizational health of Virginia Tech

than the collective brainstorming and communal

commitment embedded in a formal plan for the future.

A Plan for a New Horizon


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As part of “A Plan for a New Horizon,” Virginia Tech is searching for new ways to strengthen science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and health (STEM-H) among STEM-H and non-STEM-H students alike. Here, graduate students in the Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering work to reduce jet engine noises.

Challenging academics elevate standards


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Among the important goals in “A Plan for a New Horizon” and in the provost’s implementation plan for selected academic elements is incorporating into the general curriculum different ways of thinking, in-cluding computational thinking and infor-matics fluency — skills that are becoming increasingly necessary across all disciplines.

In 2012-13, the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded Virginia Tech an EArly-concept Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER) to explore innovative ways to incorporate engineering literacy into the general education curriculum. This past year was dedicated to curriculum planning, with a pilot project scheduled to launch in 2013-14. NSF will then eval-uate the project’s results to determine if additional money, potentially millions of dollars, will be provided to continue the project long-term.

“Virginia Tech is a leader in the sci-ence, technology, engineering, and math-ematics (STEM) fields,” said Daniel A. Wubah, former vice president for under-graduate education. “While most students

In academics, keeping an institution’s sights on the horizon requires constant

alteration and adaptation in order to continue offering the most challenging and

comprehensive course work that will prepare well-rounded students for their futures.

Updating and improving the institutional strategic plan is a crucial part of that work.


are exposed to science and math in general education courses, engineering has not traditionally been included. Because of the strength of engineering education at Vir-ginia Tech, it is logical to make it part of the core education of all our STEM majors and non-majors as well.”

The project’s goal is to strengthen STEM education at Virginia Tech, for STEM majors and non-majors alike, with a particular focus on early exposure to and development of engineering design-based teaching, supported by integrated technol-ogy tools.

This grant also complements plans to revamp the university’s general education requirements, known as the Curriculum for Liberal Education.

Summer and winter academics revisitedVirginia Tech is putting summer months and the winter break to better use academ-ically in hopes of helping students get a better start and enhancing the overall ed-ucational experience.

The Virginia Tech Summer Academy, which welcomed its first cohort of stu-dents in late summer 2012, is designed to ease the transition from high school to college. It allows first-year students to jumpstart their college careers by moving to campus in the summer for a special-ly designed program of academic and co-curricular activities.

Participating students enrolled in 13 different learning tracks in discipline-spe-cific areas. Some earned credit toward their major, while others fulfilled general educa-tion requirements. The result, according to Alumni Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Biological Sciences George Simmons, was outstanding. “I think this is one of the greatest things to happen at the university since I have been here,” said Simmons, who taught biology to academy students.

The small class size gave Simmons an opportunity to try things that are not pos-sible in his typically large classes, such as a botany bicycle field trip on the Huckle-berry Trail. “When was the last time I had seven students in one class?” he asked.


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Outside of the classroom, students participated in workshops and seminars to become better acquainted with the universi-ty and its academic support resources. Peer mentors provided academy participants with guidance and community-building activities.

The academy also supports several state and university goals and initiatives. In addition, the Virginia Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2011, known as “Top Jobs 21,” challenges institutions to create programs to promote progress toward earning a degree, enhance enrollment of underrepresented populations, and opti-mize physical resources beyond the tradi-tional semester.

During 2012-13, university officials were also making plans for a similar session to be held during the traditional winter break. Courses will be delivered in multi-ple formats, including online, in residence,

in a blended format with online and face-to-face interactions, and in specialized education-abroad opportunities.

New horizons in the classroomStudents will also benefit from a whole ar-ray of new majors, minors, and programs, as well as learning spaces designed to cross disciplines and capitalize on the univer-sity’s current strengths while reaching to fulfill society’s future needs.

For instance, the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia approved a bachelor’s degree program in real estate, a first of its kind at Tech and nationally. A partnership among six colleges, the pro-gram intentionally crosses disciplinary lines to produce well-rounded professionals who can understand and manage financial trans-actions, permitting and site design, building construction, and property management.

Another new major in environmental informatics, based in the Department of Forest Resources and Conservation in the College of Natural Resources and Environment, brings together informa-tion technology, data analysis, natural re-sources, geospatial science, and ecological modeling. In the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, students have a new foreign language major — Russian.

A minor in biomedical engineering in the College of Engineering will help meet demand for one of the fastest-growing engineering fields in the world. The mi-nor also is expected to increase awareness of the graduate program at the Virginia Tech-Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, which has garnered international head-lines for its research, especially in the field of preventing and/or minimizing head traumas among soldiers in battle and foot-ball players during games and practices. Other new minors include diversity and community engagement, peace studies and violence prevention, communication, and entrepreneurship.

New master’s and doctoral degree pro-grams in nuclear engineering have grown out of a master’s degree in mechanical engineering with a nuclear certificate, re-flecting Tech’s dedication to educational programs and research in the production and delivery of energy. Meanwhile, the departments of Religion and Culture and History in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, and Art History in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies have collaborated on a new master of arts program in material culture and public humanities. By combining the studies of

Switchgrass research at the Biological Sciences-Virginia Bioinformatics Institute Plant Growth Facility on Smithfield Plantation Road, relies on a computer control system that regulates plant growth bay environmental conditions and provides data on the Internet.



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material culture and public humanities, students will learn to interpret physical objects and artifacts within historical and cultural frameworks, preparing them for a broad range of careers in museums, histor-ical societies, humanities foundations, and community or cultural organizations.

Academic excellence isn’t just about the courses taught or majors offered, it’s also about the ways students learn and the facilities in which they learn.

One such facility that is expected to change the very landscape of the university, just as it has altered its physical horizon, is the Moss Arts Center. The center, which Steger envisioned early in his presiden-cy, includes a 1,260-seat, state-of-the-art performance hall for music, theatre, and dance performance, and visual arts galler-ies for traditional, digital, and new media exhibitions. The lineup for the first season, which started in November 2013, ranges from timeless classics and family-friendly offerings, to works with deep meaning and global themes, to events with a fresh and sometimes unexpected perspective.

Students achieving their bestExcellence in academic offerings and teachings leads to excellence in student en-deavors both in and outside the classroom, as seen in numerous ways in 2012-13.

For instance, the Clifton Forge Masonic Amphitheater, designed and built by 16 third-year architecture students in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies’ design/buildLAB, was named American-Ar-chitects Building of the Year 2012. The award was based on a popular vote from among 50 Buildings of the Week high-lighted on www.american-architects.com.

The students’ effort competed against a number of structures designed by well-known architects and firms.

In the design/buildLAB, a studio course that provides valuable hands-on, minds-on experience, students work on a real-world project from conception to completion, a process that hones their skills in design, construction, communication, and ad-ministration. The Clifton Forge project transformed a derelict tire factory into a gathering place for the community.

Keith and Marie Zawistowski, fac-ulty members in the School of Archi-tecture + Design, are the co-founders and directors of the lab. “It removes the abstraction from education,” said Keith Zawistowski. “Instead of just proposing a concept, they have a means to tangibly test that concept and realize the work. They have real clients and work with real consultants.”

Julia Button, a junior honors stu-dent majoring in biological sciences and biochemistry, was awarded a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship. She was among 271 sophomore or junior students across the nation selected for the honor. Button is involved in cancer and drug research, and hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in cancer biology.

Eight Virginia Tech students presented their undergraduate research and scholar-ship at the eighth annual ACC Meeting of the Minds Conference in April. The students included Kathryn Battle, a ju-nior majoring in wildlife science; Kenneth Black, a senior architecture major; Kat-lyn Griffin, a senior in English; Carolyn Hughes, a sophomore majoring in bio-chemistry and chemistry; William Klima, a senior majoring in electrical engineering;

Andrea Ledesma, a junior majoring in his-tory; Huanqing (Quinn) Liu, a computer science sophomore; and Lauren Withers, a junior majoring in biochemistry.

A team of six students from the My-ers-Lawson School of Construction took first place in the Associated Schools of Con-struction National Sustainable Building and LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environ-mental Design) Competition, recording the highest total score ever in the competition. They competed against 12 other collegiate teams from across the country.

Two computer science doctoral can-didates received an IBM Fellowship by competing in an international program honoring exceptional doctoral students who have an interest in solving problems essential to innovation. They are Bireswar Laha and Min Li, who was awarded the fellowship for the second consecutive year.

A team of seven geography and forestry graduate students took home Virginia Tech’s second consecutive title in the national GeoLeague Challenge at the American Society for Photogramme-try and Remote Sensing conference. The team was composed of students from the College of Natural Resources and Environ-ment and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Xie Xin, a graduate student in interior design, won an interior design competition sponsored by the Bienenstock Furniture Library, receiving $10,000 to continue her studies in interior design. Entrants were asked to complete a design project that incorporated residential and commercial spaces meeting certain specifications. Xie Xin’s winning design was an organization for runaway youth.


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Janine Hiller, professor of business law (left), and Patrick Fan, professor of accounting and information systems (below), help inspire students to blaze their own trails.

Inspirational trailblazing


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Faculty members who inspire and educate are the ones who show eager, inquisitive

students the path to the future. At Virginia Tech, we have nationally and internationally

recognized teachers who help define our horizons.


Commonwealth kudosIn 2012-13, the commonwealth recognized three of Virginia Tech’s top educators. Har-old E. Burkhart, University Distinguished Professor and the Thomas M. Brooks Professor of Forestry in the College of Natural Resources and Environment, and Patricia M. Dove, C.P. Miles Professor of Geosciences in the College of Science, were named Virginia Outstanding Scientists. And Stephen Edwards, associate professor of computer science with the College of Engineering, was named a 2013 Virginia Outstanding Faculty Award winner.

Edwards’ award, the commonwealth’s highest honor for university faculty, comes on the heels of the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors honoring him with the W.S. “Pete” White Chair for Innovation in Engineer-ing Education for leading two computer science curriculum reform efforts during the past decade.

Edwards’ most-prominent educational project is called the Web-based Center for Automated Testing, or Web-CAT, which has been adopted by 75 institutions na-tionwide. Web-CAT is the most widely used open-source academic grading tool of its kind in the world, with nearly 10,000 users. It provides rapid, directed comments on student work, encourages students to

write software tests for their own work, and empowers students with the responsi-bility of demonstrating the correctness and validity of their own programs.

“Forest scientists consider Harold Burkhart the father of forest biometrics, which explores the theory and applications of quantitative models of forest stands,” noted President Charles W. Steger. “Har-old’s international leadership in this basic research vastly improved forest develop-ment, particularly in the South.”

Burkhart’s principal trailblazing achievement was the development of a comprehensive, integrated set of for-est-yield forecasting models for stands subjected to a wide variety of management treatments. Peers call Burkhart a world-class scientist who has been one of the top leaders for more than three decades.

“Professor Burkhart’s modeling methods have been adopted, extended, and applied in Virginia, across America, and around the world, thus contributing to the goal of sustainable management of forest resources,” explained Paul Winistorfer, dean of the Col-lege of Natural Resources and Environment.

Patricia Dove, who in 2012 was elect-ed to the National Academy of Sciences, is the director of the Biogeochemistry of Earth Processes research group. By us-


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ing chemical principles and nanoscale analytical methods, Dove has become an international leader in the field of biomin-eralization — the processes by which ani-mals grow skeletons and other functional structures. Her work at the interface of earth and life is also providing insights into how fossil skeletons record changes in en-vironmental conditions over geologic time.

“Trish has that impeccable genius of looking at nature in ways that form the most critical and fundamental questions — and then comes the hard part,” said Nancy L. Ross, professor and head of the Department of Geosciences. “She goes into her lab and she re-creates on a nanoscale the chemical processes that give rise to the beautiful minerals, crystals, and structures we see in nature.”

Dove and her students are also work-ing on projects of significant concern to society, such as investigating the effects of rising carbon dioxide levels on the survival of photosynthetic organisms that create much of Earth’s oxygen.

BOV recognizes top professorsThe Board of Visitors bestows the title of University Distinguished Professor on no more than 1 percent of faculty members whose scholarly attainments have attracted national and international recognition. In 2012, they honored Patricia Dove (pro-filed above for her statewide award), and Dr. X.J. Meng, a professor of molecular virology and the first person from the Vir-ginia-Maryland Regional College of Veter-inary Medicine to hold the title.

After earning his medical degree from China’s Binzhou Medical College, Meng briefly practiced medicine part-time. After

completing a master’s degree in microbi-ology, he came to the United States and pursued a doctorate in immunobiology from Iowa State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. Viruses, especially emerging and re-emerging animal viruses, have been Meng’s obsession ever since.

Meng’s long list of achievements in-cludes the discovery of two new viruses — the swine hepatitis E virus and the avian hepatitis E virus from chickens — and the invention of the first fully licensed com-mercial vaccine against a deadly swine dis-ease. Today, Meng’s laboratory in the Cen-ter for Molecular Medicine and Infectious Diseases is considered one of the world’s leading hepatitis E virus research centers.

Faculty excellence aboundsEric Wiseman, associate professor of urban forestry and arboriculture and an Exten-sion specialist in the College of Natural Resources and Environment, received the International Society of Arboriculture’s Ear-ly Career Scientist Award, which recognizes scientists in the field of urban forestry and arboriculture who demonstrate exceptional promise and high career potential for pro-ducing internationally recognized research.

Jeffrey Kirwan, professor emeritus and forestry Extension specialist, was awarded the Virginia Department of Forestry’s highest civilian honor, the Crown Award, which recognizes an individual or entity that has gone beyond the call of duty. Kirwan, who dedicated many years to re-searching trees in Virginia as coordinator of the state’s Big Tree Program, is only the fourth recipient in the award’s history.

Janet W. Rankin, professor of human nutrition, foods, and exercise in the Col-

lege of Agriculture and Life Sciences and associate dean of the university’s Graduate School, was elected the next president of the American College of Sports Medicine, the largest organization of its kind in the world.

W. Lee Daniels, professor of envi-ronmental soil science in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, received the William T. Plass lifetime achievement award from the American Society of Min-ing and Reclamation for his work in the reclamation and rehabilitation of lands damaged by mining, waste disposal, road building, and other disturbances.

Gary Downey, Alumni Distinguished Professor of Science and Technology in Society, was elected the 20th president of the Society for Social Studies of Sci-ence. Downey is recognized internationally as a founding leader of a unique interdisci-plinary field called engineering studies.

The Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture recognized Donna Dunay, G.T. Ward Professor of Architecture, with the 2012-13 Distinguished Professor Award. The prestigious national honor is presented to just four professors annually in recognition of their achievements in teach-ing, design, scholarship, research, or service.

Leigh McCue-Weil, an associate pro-fessor with the Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering, received the Rosenblatt Young Naval Engineer Award from the American Society of Naval En-gineers. The award honors promising engi-neers younger than 35.

Andy Norton, associate professor of mathematics in the College of Science, received the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators’ 2013 AMTE Early Career Award. The association presents the


Visit www.vtnews.vt.edu/awards/2013-facstaff-awards.html to read more about faculty/staff award winners.


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award annually to a member who has made significant contributions within the first de-cade of receiving his or her doctoral degree.

The Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture recognized Marie Zawistowksi and Keith Zawistowski, both professors of practice in the School of Architecture + De-sign, with a 2012-13 Design Build Award for best practices in design-build education. The Zawistowskis received the award based on the excellence of the concepts and ap-proach behind their design/buildLAB for third-year architecture students.

Gerald (Jerry) H. Luttrell, the E. Morgan Massey Professor of Mining and Minerals Engineering, was one of 69 new members elected to the National Acade-my of Engineering. Luttrell’s nomination was based on his advancement of separa-tion technologies for the mineral and coal industries, pioneering new technology in the environmentally clean processing of mined materials.

Howard Feiertag, hospitality and tourism management instructor in the Pamplin College of Business, was honored with two awards, the Winthrop W. Grice Award for public relations excellence from the Hospitality Sales & Marketing Associa-tion International and the Virginia Society of Association Executives Lifetime Career Services Award.

David A. Dillard, who holds the Vir-ginia Tech Adhesive and Sealant Science Professorship, received the 2013 Wake Memorial Medal from the Society for Adhesion and Adhesives. The Wake Med-al is awarded triennially to a person who has made outstanding contributions to the field over a substantial period of time. There are only eight previous recipients.

Virginia Tech is creating and supporting environments for educational and research programs that support inovative, high-quality, and high-impact outcomes. Here, researchers use transmission electron microscopy in their work.


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Searching for the next horizon

Y.H. Percival Zhang, associate professor of biological systems engineering, is finding new energy and food sources.


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Potential breakthroughs in food, energyWhen most people think about renewable energy and sustainable food sources, they imagine solar panels and wind turbines, low-impact agriculture and local food-sheds. Y.H. Percival Zhang sees carbohy-drates — and his vision led to two incredi-ble breakthroughs in one year.

Zhang not only found ways to inex-pensively produce hydrogen to power cars, but he’s also discovered a mechanism to turn any plant into a food source.

“What we are doing in my lab is rev-olutionizing the biotechnology paradigm to come up with solutions that could help solve some of the biggest challenges facing our planet,” said Zhang, an associate pro-fessor of biological systems engineering in

For decades now, Virginia Tech has committed itself to discovery that serves the good

of local communities, the commonwealth, and beyond. As the university’s research

program has continued to expand ($454 million in fiscal year 2012 with sights set on

a $600 million horizon), it has concentrated more and more on practical, translational

efforts in areas like medicine, agriculture, natural resources, engineering, and the

biological, behavioral, and social sciences. In addition, research will continue to focus

on four strategically important discovery areas identified in the new strategic plan:

national and local security; the resiliency of systems, organizations, communities,

and ecosystems; health and medicine; and sustainability.


the College of Agriculture and Life Scienc-es and the College of Engineering. “I pro-pose what I am calling the ‘electricity-hy-drogen-carbohydrate cycle’ to jump-start sustainability efforts around the world.”

Zhang’s projects have received an enormous amount of attention around the world. One paper highlights how he has been able to extract large amounts of hydro-gen from any plant, a breakthrough that has the potential to bring a low-cost, environ-mentally friendly fuel source to the world.

The other paper, which appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, demonstrates how Zhang has been able to create starch from plants not traditionally thought of as a food source. This would allow farmers to grow a large amount of

biomass on marginal lands for food and biofuel without requiring fertilizers, pesti-cides, and massive amounts of water.

In the fuel project, Zhang’s team liber-ates high-purity hydrogen under mild reac-tion. To extract the hydrogen, the research-ers manipulate xylose, a sugar that makes up as much as 30 percent of plant cell walls.

Enzymes also are critical for Zhang’s project with starch. His new approach takes cellulose from nonfood plant mate-rial, such as corn stover (the stem, leaves, and husk of the corn plant remaining after ears of corn are harvested), and converts about 30 percent to amylose, a component of starch. However, the process works with cellulose from any plant.

This bioprocess is easy to scale up for commercial production. It is environmen-


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tally friendly because it does not require expensive equipment, heat, or chemical reagents and does not generate any waste. His processes have a host of other potential uses, including biodegradable packaging, food for livestock, and a battery that runs on sugar.

Now Zhang is focusing on ways to bring the discoveries to the market, where they can start to benefit society. “I’d like to improve these technologies and solve the remaining technical issues so that we can achieve large-scale commercialization,” he said.

Neutrino puzzle solvedOne of 2012’s top scientific breakthroughs (according to Science Magazine) took place at Virginia Tech. Physicists, as part of a collaboration with U.S. and Chinese re-searchers, found the third and final known neutrino mixing angle, a discovery that could have a significant impact on physics and the universe as we understand it.

Among the scientists at Virginia Tech who took part were Leo Piilonen, depart-ment of physics chair; physics professors Patrick Huber and Jon Link; postdoctoral researcher Deb Mohapatra; Joseph Hor, of Hong Kong; Meng Yue, of Qiqihar, China, both doctoral students in physics; and lab technician Jo Ellen Morgan.

And the discovery of the last mixing angle isn’t the end of the line for Virginia Tech researchers. In fact, the discovery may have opened exciting new doors in physics. “The standard model of particle physics … works so well that for decades everywhere we’ve looked we’ve found things to be in agreement with the model,” Link said. “If that keeps up, we’ll be done measuring the known parameters in 15 years.

“But in neutrino physics there may be something interesting going on, and Virginia Tech has been at the forefront of studying this for some time,” he added. “There is evidence of a fourth type of neu-trino and possibly more.”

Tapping into higher levels of thinkingIn the area of health and medicine, the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute (VTCRI) has become an important part of the path to the university’s new hori-zon. The institute creates a bridge between basic science research at Tech and clinical expertise at Carilion Clinic, and it increas-es translational research opportunities for both partners in a unique public-private endeavor that also includes the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine.

Many of the current research teams at the institute are dedicated to the brain: its influence on all aspects of our bodies and our behavior, its adaptive capabilities, and, in certain instances, its potential for train-ing and retraining.

“All brain disorders combined — in-cluding stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, trau-matic brain injury, depression, addiction, post-traumatic stress disorder, Parkinson’s disease, and developmental and intellectu-al disabilities such as autism spectrum dis-orders — have a greater economic impact on the country and the world than any other type of disorder, and that includes cancers and heart disease,” said Michael Friedlander, executive director of the insti-tute, which is comprised of more than 20 world-class research teams.

Stephen LaConte, an assistant pro-fessor at the institute and at the Virginia

Tech-Wake Forest School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, helps people who have a mild traumatic brain injury, such as a concussion, rebalance their de-fault mode network, regions in the brain that seem to be connected to non-taxing mental tasks, such as daydreaming. Sci-entists believe this network becomes dis-rupted when the brain is injured, causing delays in recovery.

Brooks King-Casas, an assistant pro-fessor at the institute and in the College of Science, studies brain function in the context of social interaction, examining how the brain makes decisions. In a study funded by the U.S. Department of Vet-erans Affairs, King-Casas is examining post-traumatic stress disorder and mild traumatic brain injury among returning veterans. “We are interested in how stress-ful experiences affect how people make decisions in both social and nonsocial contexts,” he said.

Research in Friedlander’s lab is directed at revealing the physical changes that occur at the synaptic connections between individ-ual brain cells during learning. The research compares these processes in normal develop-ing brains with those in injured brains.

Sharon Ramey, a distinguished research scholar at the institute and a research professor of psychology in the College of Science, and her colleagues at the VTCRI Neuromotor Research Clinic — which is co-directed by Stephanie DeLuca — are studying highly intensive forms of therapy to promote motor function in children with cerebral palsy and other brain injuries.

Until now, there hasn’t been a way to measure a person’s mental health in a computational manner, such as the way


Highly creative applied research with commercial advantages has resulted in revenue growth for 13 consecutive years and 866 collaborative funding awards in a single year.


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lipids and cholesterol are measured, but Read Montague, a professor at the insti-tute and in the Department of Physics in the College of Science, is changing how mental health is physically assessed. “I am a computational neuroscientist,” he said. “I turn feelings into numbers.” As director of the Human Neuroimaging Lab, Montague leads a group of social-cognition research-ers at the institute who study people’s awareness of social interactions.

Montague also directs the Roanoke Brain Study, a project aimed at under-standing decision-making through the life span and its relationship to brain devel-opment, function, and disease. The study will be the world’s largest lifespan study of the brain, drawing in thousands of partic-ipants from the Roanoke area and several sites in London.

Banking on the windThe Virginia Tech Advanced Research Institute (ARI) is part of a Dominion Vir-ginia Power-led team that was one of seven selected by the Department of Energy to receive $4 million in federal matching funds to undertake initial engineering,

design, and permitting for an offshore wind-turbine demonstration facility. The Department of Energy will select up to three teams out of the seven for an addi-tional $47 million each for actual con-struction and demonstration.

“Virginia expects to be a major player in off-shore wind energy development and Virginia Tech can contribute very signifi-cantly,” said Saifur Rahman, the Joseph R. Loring Professor of Electrical and Com-puter Engineering and director of ARI.

Offshore wind represents a large, un-tapped energy resource for the United States — offering more than 4,000 giga-watts of clean, domestic electricity poten-tial, four times the nation’s current total generation capacity.

Boosting bioscienceThe Virginia Biosciences Health Research Corp., formed by Virginia Tech, Eastern Virginia Medical School, George Mason University, the University of Virginia, and Virginia Commonwealth University, will foster collaborative scientific research innova-tion and provide a new program for public/private partnering with Virginia universities.

In announcing the new collaboration, Gov. Robert F. McDonnell said, “Bioscience is on the forefront right now, and R&D investments have a tremendous economic impact in total jobs and increased annual state tax revenue. The Virginia Biosciences Health Research Corporation is another great example of a public-private partnership that will bring companies in the life sciences industry in direct collaboration with leading universities to build on Virginia’s growing momentum in this booming sector.”

Increasingly, leading pharmaceutical, medical device, and biotechnology firms are establishing themselves in Virginia. Opportunities exist for co-location and cooperative relationships with Virginia’s universities, federal labs, and other re-search entities, and the new corporation is designed to promote and foster these part-nerships and increase the commonwealth’s standing in life sciences nationally.

The corporation will be funded with $5 million for 2013-14 from the com-monwealth’s General Fund. The five founding institutions will each make a $50,000 cash contribution in each of the first and second years.

Andrea Dietrich, professor of civil and environmental engineering, helps students push the boundaries in the classroom and the lab.


16

Technology innovation leading the way

Quinton Nottingham, associate professor of business information technology, teaches distance-learning students.


17

Increasing Distance-Learning EfficienciesVirginia Tech has long been at the forefront of distance-learning technology as a crucial path to the future, starting in the 1970s when the university distributed videotapes. The enterprise expanded in the 1980s with satellite and video conferencing, and again in 1994 with the first online courses. By 1997, Virginia Tech was offering its first online graduate degree.

Since then, advances in technology have changed the landscape of distance learning. Currently, all undergraduate students take at least one online course be-fore they graduate. In 2011-12, there were more than 18,000 undergraduate enroll-ments in online courses and almost 6,000 graduate course enrollments. The universi-ty offers 27 graduate degree and certificate programs entirely online in addition to eight blended graduate programs (online and interactive videoconferencing).

Advances in technology are dramatically reshaping educational horizons, and

not just in the classroom. Skills that students must acquire in order to excel in

complex and changing digital and networked environments are expanding rapidly.

E-learning courses that leverage technology and teaching-learning processes are

now embraced and expected as part of educational experiences.


Given Tech’s past track record of suc-cess in distance learning and use of tech-nology within the physical classroom, the university is ready to further enhance those methods, as called for in “A Plan for a New Horizon,” as well as the “Distance Learn-ing Strategic Plan.”

As a result, Tech intentionally reor-ganized administrative units to give the university a better platform to increase quality and growth in this area. Two units — the Institute for Distance and Distrib-uted Learning and the Division of Learning Technologies — were combined into one stronger unit, Technology-enhanced Learn-ing and Online Strategies, allowing for in-creased efficiencies.

The convergence will better situate the university to fulfill distance-learning goals. In particular, the unit will provide facul-ty with one destination for assistance in developing an online course, pedagogical considerations, and financial support.

The collaboration provides the pros-pect of exploring new financial and tu-ition models that will enhance quality and enrollment. The university provides teaching incentives and funds research into new ways to learn with vehicles like its Enterprise Fund and the Provost Course Development Fund, which in spring 2013 supported the development of or signif-icant updates to 14 online courses. As a result, Tech was selected by the National University Technology Network to receive its 2013 Institutional Achievement Award.

“By funding distance learning research … Virginia Tech not only develops distance learning programs, but more importantly, seeks to improve the quality, expand access to, and minimize the cost of education,” said the award panel.

Meanwhile in 2012-13, U.S. News & World Report named the university’s online master of information technology degree program as one of the nation’s best


18

distance-learning courses in its second-an-nual Top Online Education rankings. The program, offered by the College of Engineering and the Pamplin College of Business, was ranked third in the U.S. The program is a partnership among the De-partment of Computer Science, Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Department of Accounting and Information Systems, Department of Business Information Technology, and Department of Management.

In addition, the College of Engineering ranked 13th overall in the nation for Best Online Graduate Engineering Programs, according to the 2013 list. It is the only engineering distance-learning program ranked in the commonwealth.

University IT gets a new leaderTo direct the university’s overall informa-tion technology enterprise, including ap-plying technology to learning and research, President Charles W. Steger announced that Scott F. Midkiff, professor and head of the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, would become Tech’s new vice president for information technology and chief information officer.

“We recently concluded a nationwide search involving some of the brightest minds in the business. Yet, we realized that the best candidate to lead us forward, [someone] also among the nation’s leading lights, was already on our campus,” said Steger. “Pro-fessor Midkiff is a recognized authority on wireless networks, mobile systems, and pervasive computing. With his extensive ac-ademic background, he can address univer-sity computing, telecommunications, and network needs from multiple standpoints ... as a researcher, faculty member, department head, and senior administrator.”

“Information technology has never been more important to an organization than now, especially a research university,” said Midkiff. “High-performance com-puting is fundamental and essential to the research endeavor. In addition, we have al-ready demonstrated the important linkage between information technology and the learning-teaching environment.”

Midkiff arrived at Virginia Tech in 1986 and has developed and taught undergrad-uate and graduate courses in networking, wireless networks and mobile systems, network applications, and telecommunica-tions. He was appointed head of the Bradley

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2009. He also worked at Bell Laboratories, Carnegie Mellon University, and on special assignment as a program di-rector at the National Science Foundation.

Midkiff is the author of more than 125 peer-reviewed journal and conference publications. He received Virginia Tech’s XCaliber Award for teaching with tech-nology in 2004 and the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching from the College of Engineering in 2005.

New levels in high-performance computingIn 2011, Virginia Tech announced the creation of HokieSpeed, a supercomputer so energy efficient that it was the high-est-ranked commodity supercomputer in the U.S. on the Green500, a ranking of the most energy-efficient supercomputers in the world.

Wu Feng, associate professor of com-puter science, designed and built Hokie-Speed, with a National Science Founda-tion instrumentation grant for a modest $1.4 million.

Feng believes he and his team can do even better, and so does the Air Force’s Of-fice of Scientific Research (AFOSR), which awarded him $3.5 million over three years with the option for a two-year extension at another $2.5 million. The award will allow Feng to pursue a substantial increase in the simulation speed of the computation-al fluid dynamics of its micro air vehicles (MAV), a class of unmanned aerial vehi-cles, using accelerator-based supercomput-ers like HokieSpeed.

To achieve this target, Feng said his objective is to herald a new age in multi- and many-core parallel computing that he believes will “transform supercomputing.” To accomplish that, he has pulled together an internationally recognized team of re-searchers from Virginia Tech and North Carolina State University, including aero-space and mechanical engineers, computer scientists, and mathematicians.


Wu Feng, associate professor of computer science; Mark Gardener, network information technology manager; and Balagi Subramaniam, doctoral student, next to the HokieSpeed supercomputer. Feng and his team are working on transforming supercomputing.


Blacksburg isn’t generally a home to jellyfish,

much less ones the size of a grown man —

at least not until College of Engineering re-

searchers unveiled a 5-foot 7-inch, 170-pound

creature as part of a U.S. Navy-funded project.

The prototype robot, nicknamed Cyro, is

a larger model of a robotic jellyfish the same

team — headed by Shashank Priya, professor

of mechanical engineering — unveiled in

2012. The earlier robot, dubbed RoboJelly, is

roughly the size of a man’s hand, typical of

jellyfish found along beaches.

Both robots are part of a multi-universi-

ty, nationwide $5 million project funded by

the U.S. Naval Undersea Warfare Center and

the Office of Naval Research. The goal is to

place self-powered, autonomous machines

in waters for surveillance and monitoring

the environment, including studying aquatic

life, mapping ocean floors, and monitoring

ocean currents.

“A larger vehicle will allow for more pay-

load, longer duration, and longer range of

operation,” said Alex Villanueva, a doctoral stu-

dent in mechanical engineering working un-

der Priya. “Biological and engineering results

show that larger vehicles have a lower cost of

transport, which is a metric used to determine

how much energy is spent for traveling.”

Because jellyfish consume little energy

due to a lower metabolic rate than other

marine species, they are attractive candidates

to mimic. Additionally, they appear in a wide

variety of sizes, shapes, and colors, allowing

for several designs. Priya’s team is building the

jellyfish body models, integrating fluid me-

chanics and developing control systems.

As with the smaller models, Cyro’s skin is

comprised of a thick layer of silicone, squishy in

one’s hand. When moving, the skin floats and

moves with the robot, looking weirdly alive.

“It has been a great experience to finally

realize the biomimetic and bio-inspired robot-

ic vehicles,” Priya said. “Nature has too many

secrets and we were able to find some of

them but many still remain. We hope to find

a mechanism to continue on this journey and

resolve the remaining puzzles.”

Invasion of the jellyfish

19


20

Reaching out for a brighter horizon

Austin Larrowe, student founder of Feed by Seed, exemplifies Ut Prosim every day.


21

Food self-sufficiencyAustin Larrowe, a junior majoring in applied economics management and agricultural sciences in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, garnered one of 72 presidential fellowships from the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress to research how international agriculture education can be a tool to enhance national security.

To do that, he married his passions for international affairs and agriculture through the nonprofit organization he started his freshman year, Feed by Seed. The organization has access to 18 acres of land in a poverty-stricken area of Nicara-gua, where volunteers work with two local schools to teach vital skills to students and their families.

“Our vision is to make an economically and agriculturally self-sufficient community. … We teach [people] technical skills for ag-ricultural production, so they can eat what they grow or sell it to make money. We also work with the individuals on leadership de-velopment, basic economics, and fostering a sense of hope for the future,” Larrowe said.

“Most of the research I’ve found in do-ing my Presidential Fellows Program paper

Academics are the primary focus for students at Virginia Tech, but the lessons they learn

in classrooms and in extracurricular endeavors can be put to use to pave a path to a

better future for others by following the university’s motto, Ut Prosim (That I May Serve).


is, if across the globe, women had the same access to resources in agriculture education and extension research as men do — which is not the case now in many countries — global food production could grow by 40 percent,” Larrowe said. “It doesn’t only make sense from a production standpoint, but from anti-trafficking, food security, family, and community standpoints as well. Investing in women can cause a very significant power shift.”

VT Engage — leading communitiesOther Virginia Tech students find them-selves equally motivated to help commu-nities in need, except their focus is a little closer to home, giving to the communities that give to them.

“We want to get our students really thinking about leadership in their commu-nities,” said Gary Kirk, director of VT En-gage: The Community Learning Collabo-rative at Tech. “We want them to realize that they have a role and responsibility in whatever community they are in.”

For example, Get on the Bus, launched in fall 2012, is one of dozens of VT Engage

projects. It introduces faculty, staff, and stu-dents to volunteerism through flash service projects — up to 30 individuals hop on a bus to participate in an endeavor in the New River and Roanoke valleys. For instance, participants might find themselves work-ing alongside community volunteers at a regional Feeding America warehouse, where large quantities of donated food are collect-ed and distributed to food banks through-out Southwest Virginia. On the way home, they are encouraged to share in reflective conversations about the experience.

“The concept is that our volunteers are getting something from the community and the community is getting something from our volunteers,” Kirk says. “We’re not com-ing in to take over a community project. We need to work alongside members of the com-munity so that it’s a win-win for everyone.”

Through the generosity of donors, VT Engage also established a new grant program, the John E. Dooley Student Engagement Grant, to fund highly motivated students or student teams interested in implementing community-based civic engagement projects. In its first year, the program, named for for-mer Vice President of Outreach and Interna-


22

tional Affairs John E. Dooley, awarded $750 each to two students.

• Tana Schiewer, a doctoral student in rhetoric and writing in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, proposed a communication workshop for local organizations, focusing on consistent messaging, social media, and developing community support.

• Nina Miller, an agricultural sciences and psychology major, proposed cre-ating the Fieldstone Community gar-den to provide fresh, safe, and healthy produce to feed needy families in the New River Valley.

Learning from helpingFor one group of 35 dedicated Tech students, year 2013 began with hot sun, heavy manual labor, and lots of love during a week-long ser-vice journey to Central America, a trip that changed many of their lives forever.

They were part of Students Helping Hon-duras (SHH), an international grass roots organization that builds villages, schools, and orphanages in the poverty-stricken na-tion. The organization hosts nearly 1,000 volunteers from all over the world, and high schools and universities have created SHH chapters to raise funds and help the organiza-tion reach its goal of building 1,000 schools in the country by the year 2020.

On this particular trip, Virginia Tech students helped break ground on a school in the town of Eben Ezer just outside the village of El Progreso. Long days were spent digging trenches and pouring cement, often with American students working alongside native Hondurans.

“We learned from each other,” said Josh Enokida, a junior majoring in materi-als science and engineering in the College

of Engineering and also co-president of the group. “For me, the experience is all about getting away from everyday life to a place you never thought you would go. It extends Ut Prosim beyond our local community.”

Reaching across oceansIn many instances when Virginia Tech takes steps to expand its international influence, the university also ends up expanding its service to others. Such is the case in India.

Whether India can spring millions of people from poverty rests in part on its capacity to produce enough electricity for everyone, and a new Virginia Tech research center in the state of Tamil Nadu will mo-bilize an engineering team to refine and adapt windmills and solar panels for use in households in rural India.

“The goal is to improve life for 400 million Indians not connected to the grid,” said Guru Ghosh, vice president for Outreach and International Affairs. “There are still some refinements to be made. … We’re aiming for the point where the solar panels and small windmills can be mass produced, tested in India’s rural commu-nities, and then be deployed to create low-cost, renewable energy worldwide.”

Two years ago Tech announced an agreement with private-sector partner MARG Swarnabhoomi to establish a Vir-ginia Tech campus in India. MARG Swarn-abhoomi has committed $1.8 million for laboratory build-out, while Virginia Tech is underwriting staff and operations with an initial outlay of $350,000, Ghosh said. The new endeavor will be called the VT, India Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science Innovation Center. It will be inside MARG Swarnabhoomi’s Amrita Research Park, where ocean breez-

es are conducive to windmill research. While graduate students assigned to the center will be drawn initially from Vir-ginia Tech’s partner institutions in India, eventually Blacksburg-based students will have the opportunity to work on the proj-ect, Ghosh said.

Higher-education institutions band-ing together can also help communities in other ways. During this past year, the University of Maryland, George Washing-ton University, and Virginia Tech jointly announced they would use $3.75 million in funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to tackle an enduring challenge: how to translate $60 billion in research funding into new products and companies that benefit society.

The three universities launched a re-gional Innovation Corps (I-Corps) node with one goal — to find the best entre-preneurial student and faculty researchers and help them bring their discoveries to market. I-Corps takes researchers through a seven-week program emphasizing talking to as many potential customers as possible, pivoting in response to resulting insights, building low-cost prototypes, and building a scalable business model.

“Thirty-five of the top 200 U.S. uni-versities in research and development ex-penditures are located within a four-hour drive of this I-Corps partnership,” said John “Jack” Lesko, associate dean for re-search and graduate studies in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech. “Those universities collectively conducted $14.3 billion in research in 2010. We will attract and train teams from these top regional academic institutions, as well as from the many federal and state research labs unique to the region.”



When scientists, engineers, and other re-

searchers at Virginia Tech need a glass com-

ponent for lab work, they have two options.

If it exists, they can try to order it. Or, they can

call Tom Wertalik, the university’s only scien-

tific glassblower.

In his Hahn Hall South lab in the Depart-

ment of Chemistry, Wertalik puts nearly three

decades of glassmaking experience to use help-

ing researchers forge the future with the help of

one very unscientific, primary tool — a flame.

“What I do is technically called lamp work-

ing, or flame working, which is a discipline of

glassblowing,” Wertalik said. “The kind you see

with the really long pipe, that isn’t what I do.”

Wertalik’s work, in fact, is far more complex.

Scientific glassblower’s work keeps research moving

“People will come in and ask for all kinds

of things – many of which don’t exist,” he said.

“They’ll bring sketches on pieces of paper or

we’ll talk about what they’re trying to achieve

and usually we can work something out, but

not every idea can be made of glass.”

Many items can, however, like a feeding

tube for bed-bug research that Wertalik com-

pleted for researchers in the Department of

Entomology in the College of Agriculture and

Life Sciences. “They brought a couple older

versions of some glassware and we made

some modifications,” Wertalik said.

In addition to “regular” scientific glass,

Wertalik also works with quartz, which doesn’t

heat to a flaming orange like most glass; it

turns bright white. And a solid bar of quartz,

when heated, will distribute light out the

non-heated end like a flashlight.

“This is the basis for fiber-optics,” he said.

“Quartz isn’t used too much in chemistry,

but it’s very popular for electrical engineer-

ing purposes.”

“We are the envy of many universities,

having a master glassblower like Tom here,”

said James Tanko, chemistry department chair.

“From the standpoint of the fabrication of sci-

entific glassware, having Tom here means the

practical limitation is our imagination. If we

can think of it, chances are he can make it.”

All that science and knowledge realized

because of one man — and a flame.

23


24

Michele “Shelley” Duke may not be a Virginia Tech alumna, but she grew to love the university after taking her horses to the Marion DuPont Scott Equine Med-ical Center for care. She received the 2013 William H. Ruffner Medal, the university’s highest honor, for the substantial differ-ence she has made through her volunteer service and support.

Duke, who owns and operates Rally-wood Farm in Middleburg, Va., was the first female vice rector on the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors. Her relationship with Tech spans more than 20 years. She has been director of the equine center’s volunteer program and chair of the Equine Medical Center Council. The Virginia Tech-related boards or commit-tees on which Duke has served include the Virginia Tech Foundation Board of Directors, the National Campaign Steer-ing Committee for the university’s past fundraising campaign, the Women in Leadership and Philanthropy Council, and others.

Duke was named an honorary alumna by the Virginia Tech Alumni Association in 2005 — a distinction fewer than 15 people have received.

Every year the university recognizes alumni or

friends who have given their time and resources

to pave a better path for those to come.

Pathway blazers

Ben J. Davenport Jr., of Chatham, Va., and David E. Lowe, of Blacksburg, received 2013 Alumni Distinguished Service Awards for their contributions to the university.

Davenport is chairman of First Pied-mont Corp., a regional waste-management company, as well as Davenport Energy, a supplier of petroleum products. He was a founding member of the Mid-Atlantic Broadband Corp., which has built a fiber network connecting 26 counties and cities.

After earning his bachelor’s of business administration in 1964 from what is now Virginia Tech’s Pamplin College of Busi-ness, Davenport joined the U.S. Coast Guard Reserves, then returned to the family business, which was then known as Chatham Oil Company.

Davenport’s record of service to the university community includes member-ship on the Virginia Tech Board of Visi-tors, where he was rector for two years; the Virginia Tech Foundation Board; and the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine Board of Directors.

Lowe’s service to the university began while he was working toward the bache-lor’s of business administration degree he earned in 1963. He was president of his class and regimental commander of the Corps of Cadets.

Lowe spent five years in the U.S. Air Force after graduation. His business career

spanned 35 years in the telecommuni-cations industry with Bell-Atlantic (now Verizon), including president and CEO in West Virginia. At Tech, Lowe serves as chairman of the operating board for the Pete Dye River Course of Virginia Tech. He coordinated reconstruction of the en-tire golf course and the driving range, as well as construction of the Turf Care Cen-ter, Golf Team Center, and a $5.5 million clubhouse. Virginia Tech’s Class of 2013 honored Lowe as its class-ring namesake.

Tracy D. Wilkins, an emeritus member of Tech’s faculty, received the 2013 University Distinguished Achievement Award, which recognizes achievements of enduring sig-nificance in any field.

Wilkins joined Virginia Tech’s De-partment of Anaerobic Microbiology in 1972, ultimately achieving the dis-tinction of J.B. Stroobants Professor of Biotechnology. In his campus leadership roles, he was charged with developing and implementing a strategy for Virginia Tech’s original thrust into biotechnology research. As a result, he played a leading role in establishing two of Virginia Tech’s premier life-science facilities: the Fralin Biotechnology Center, now the Fralin Life Science Institute, and the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute.

Wilkins made numerous contributions in the area of infectious disease research, including developing effective methods for the sampling, diagnosis, and timely treatment of the leading hospital-acquired microbial infection, commonly called C. diff. As a research scientist, he holds eight patents and has started two successful companies, TechLab and TransPharm.

Wilkins also conceived of and, through his company, provided resources for Vir-ginia Tech’s biotechnology outreach pro-gram. One highlight of this program is the Biotech in a Box initiative, which pro-vides supplies and equipment for hands-on experiments to high school students throughout the commonwealth.

Honors


25

University Development at Virginia Tech excelled again in 2012-13 at raising the resources needed to help usher the univer-sity into the future, garnering more than $90 million, the third-highest yearly total in Tech history and the most money ever raised in a non-campaign year. It was an 18 percent improvement on fiscal 2011-12.

“Year after year, our supporters provide millions of dollars that fuel important pro-grams across the university and help thou-sands of students through scholarships,” said Elizabeth “Betsy” Flanagan, the university’s vice president for development and universi-ty relations. “Last year’s generosity was partic-ularly noteworthy. I, my colleagues, and our institution at large are extremely grateful.”

A majority of college or program fund-raising units increased the amount they raised compared to the year before, many by large margins. Combined, the Virgin-ia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and Research Institute raised nearly five times more. The College of Natural Resources and Environment and the Virginia-Mary-land Regional College of Veterinary Med-

Private philanthropy fuels the university’s forward

progress — in scholarship, research, outreach, and

more. Each day, programs and initiatives made possible

by donors touch the lives of untold thousands on

campus, across the region, and around the world.

Philanthropy

icine more than doubled their amounts raised, while the W.E. Skelton 4-H Educa-tional Conference Center at Smith Moun-tain Lake raised nearly 89 percent more.

The College of Engineering raised nearly $9.7 million more than in fiscal year 2011-12 — the largest dollar increase of any unit — and its $25 million total was also the most donated to any college or program. Athletics raised nearly $22.9 million, topping $20 million for the ninth consecutive year.

Annual giving increased by 7.7 percent to nearly $4.91 million, the most ever.

Over the course of the fiscal year, more than $15.8 million in estate distributions were received, the second-most in univer-sity history. Alumni donated nearly $38.2 million, while friends of the university gave nearly $22.1 million. Corporations gave $16.6 million; foundations donated more than $5.9 million; current or former faculty and staff, more than $2.7 million; parents of current or former students, nearly $2.2 million; and other organiza-tions gave nearly $2.3 million.

Endowment perFull-time Student

NOTE: Figures in the state funding chart for all years will dif-fer slightly from numbers in annual reports before 2008-09 because past figures have reflected a method that used fall registration to calculate the full-time equivalent headcount. The numbers in this year’s report instead of reflect an an-nualized head count. Figures are not adjusted for inflation.

Source: Virginia Tech Office of Budget and Financial Planning

* Fiscal years

‘04 ‘05 ‘06 ‘07 ‘08 ‘09 ‘10 ‘11 ‘12 ‘13*

$13,

962

$15,

310

$16,

447

$18,

972

$18,

216

$15,

130

$16,

646

$19,

619

$19,

536

$21,

435

State Funding perFull-time In-state Student

‘04 ‘05 ‘06 ‘07 ‘08 ‘09 ‘10 ‘11 ‘12 ‘13*

$7,1

19

$7,7

65

$8,1

08

$8,4

87

$7,9

75

$8,0

05

$6,8

59

$6,7

09

$6,1

46

$6,2

95

Philanthropy


26

Dr. Steger’s Highlights

1970 Earned bachelor of architecture

1971 Earned master of architecture, urban design

1971-74 Worked at Wiley & Wilson Inc., Lynchburg, Va., eventually becoming manager of the urban planning department

1973-76 Named visiting lecturer, then instructor, then assistant professor at Virginia Tech

1976-81 Named chairman, graduate program, urban design

1978 Earned Ph.D., environmental sciences and engineering

1980 The Washington-Alexandria Architecture Center is established

1981 Named interim dean of the College of Architecture & Urban Studies (CAUS)

Promoted to associate professor

Appointed dean of CAUS. At 33, he’s the youngest dean of a school of architecture in the U.S. Served in that position until 1993

1990 Named a Fellow in the American Institute of Architects

Became acting vice president for public service, serving concurrently as CAUS dean

1991 Under his leadership, the university establishes the Center for European Studies and Architecture (CESA)

1993 Promoted to full professor of architecture

Appointed vice president for development and university relations

1998 Finished directing the successful Making A World of Difference fundraising campaign

2000 Inaugurated as president

2003 The Virginia Tech-Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences is formed System X, at the time the most powerful supercomputer in academia, is launched

2004 University opened the building for the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research in Danville, Va., which was founded in 2000

University joined the Atlantic Coast Conference

2005 Worked with colleagues to achieve the General Assembly’s passage of the Virginia Restructured Higher Education Financial and Administra-tive Operations Act of 2005, providing greater autonomy to universities

University adopted the Virginia Tech Principles of Community. The principles reflect the university’s “ongoing efforts to increase access and inclusion and to create a community that nurtures learning and growth for all of its members.”

2006 University established the Steger Poetry Prize. The purse ranks among the most generous for undergraduate poetry competitions in the nation.

2007 Led the university during the difficult days following the April 16 tragedy

2009 University adopted the Virginia Tech Climate Action Commitment and the accompanying Sustainability Plan

2010 The Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine in Roanoke, Va., welcomed its first class of students, as the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute is established

2011 University opened the Virginia Tech Research Center — Arlington

On Nov. 12, Steger announced that The Campaign for Virginia Tech: Invent the Future raised $1.11 billion between 2003 and 2011

2012 Infrastructure and the first building in Phase II of the Corporate Research Center’s expansion is completed

2013 Announced his intention to step down as the university’s 15th president

Virginia Supreme Court entered final judgment in favor of the commonwealth in two civil lawsuits arising from the 2007 tragedy

Center for the Arts opened its doors

Highlights of Charles W. Steger’s years at Tech


Thanks to the efforts of forestry professors,

Virginia Tech has preserved a well-known

piece of its past by using modern scientific

techniques. The stately sycamore that graced

Henderson Lawn from about 1870 until 2010

has returned — this time by way of its proge-

ny with the same DNA.

On April 22, 2013, President Charles W.

Steger presided over a town-gown tree-plant-

ing. The 10-foot tree they planted, in a spot

near where the original sycamore once stood,

was rooted from a cutting taken from the dy-

ing historic tree shortly before it was removed

nearly three years earlier.

The sycamore clone is one of only two that

survived from 300 small cuttings taken from

the mother tree. “Unfortunately, we just were

not very good at getting the cuttings to root,”

explained John Seiler, Alumni Distinguished

Professor in the College of Natural Resources

and Environment. The only other cutting that

survived was planted outside Cheatham Hall.

“Over time this identical twin will look just

like its mother tree, which succumbed to what

became a poor growing environment, root

damage from underground utility work in the

1980s, fungal disease, and old age,” said Eric

Wiseman, associate professor of urban forestry

and arboriculture.

The tree presides over the new College

Avenue area, which has been converted to be

a more pedestrian-friendly promenade, where

no doubt new memories will be made.

“Trees hold enormous emotional attach-

ments for people of all ages,” said Paul Winis-

torfer, dean of the College of Natural Resourc-

es and Environment. “This event marks a sig-

nificant occasion to perpetuate the memory

of a tree that was very special to many people

over the ages.”

Sycamore to continue providing memories

27


28

TimelineAUGUSTTurner Place ups the ante on campus diningThe new Turner Place dining center at La-very Hall opens, adding to the university’s reputation as one of the best college dining programs in the U.S. Diners will also be able to have a Japanese steakhouse-style lunch or dinner, order from a full-service sushi counter, snack on fresh crêpes and gelato made on site, or sit down to meats and vegetables cooked on a grill fueled en-tirely by wood.

First-ever quadruplets settle inThe first quadruplets ever to attend the university arrive for move-in day. The three brothers and one sister, of Richmond, Va., each will pursue very different academic and career paths. Greg Lomaka will major in statistics, Steve Lomaka will major in information systems, Chris Lomaka will major in building construction, and Kate Lomaka, will major in human nutrition, foods, and exercise.

Vet Med opens much-needed addition The Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine opens its $14.1 million, 30,000-square-foot Veterinary Medicine Instruction Addition. It includes a clinical techniques laboratory for second- and third-year veterinary students as well as new faculty offices, student seminar space, and small conference areas. The col-lege also welcomes its largest entering class ever of 126 students.

SEPTEMBERUniversity is recognized for support of militaryVirginia Tech is named to the 2013 Mil-itary Friendly Schools list, compiled by Victory Media, a group that focuses on transitioning military personnel into ci-vilian life. Schools were ranked in nine categories, including military support on campus, academic credibility, and veteran graduation rates.

Alumni recommend TechIn a new college ranking system put out by The Alumni Factor, which rates insti-tutions based on graduate success, Virginia Tech was eighth among national universi-ties and 24th among all colleges in alumni loyalty, financial success, and various sat-isfaction measures. Tech was first in the number of alumni who said they would choose the school again.

Hokie offerings in Tidewater increaseThe university expands its presence in the eastern part of the state by opening a new facility in Newport News. The center — called the Virginia Tech Hampton Roads Center, Newport News — is a joint effort with the University of Virginia. It mirrors the universities’ partnership in Richmond, where office, classroom, and operations spaces are shared.

Propulsion lab gets the go-aheadThe Virginia Tech Board of Visitors ap-proves development of a $3.5 million pro-pulsion laboratory in Phase 2 of the Cor-porate Research Center. The 8,100-square-foot facility, operated by the College of Engineering, will support propulsion research, including next-generation fighter and commercial aircraft engine technology.

JULYUniversity to help cultivate science studentsVirginia Tech and the Virginia Science Technology Engineering and Applied Mathematics (STEAM) Academy form a strategic partnership to attract more students to STEAM-related disciplines early in their school careers. The Virginia STEAM Academy will be a public, res-idential school for approximately 1,000 students in grades nine through 12.

Upward Bound draws continued fundingThe Upward Bound program is awarded a five-year, $1.85 million grant by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Post-secondary Education, TRIO Programs. The first-year allocation of the grant — $462,993 — will be supplemented by an in-kind contribution from Tech.

Governor’s award goes to MourasTech’s director of transportation and campus services, Steve Mouras, wins the Governor’s Award for Innovation. Mouras is credited with increasing efficiency and productivity in Tech’s parking, fleet, and alternative transportation services as well as in the print shop, centralized mailing, and records management.

Board of Visitors gains new membersDr. Nancy V. Dye, of Roanoke; William Day Fairchild III, of Gainesville; B. Keith Fulton, of Glen Allen; and Dennis H. Trea-cy, of Hanover, are appointed by Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell to join the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors.

Timeline


29

OCTOBERUniversity provides greater confidence of online securityVirginia Tech becomes the first university in the country to qualify for Internet2’s InCommon Bronze and Silver Identity Assurance program, which provides greater assurance to federal agencies, universities, nonprofit organizations, and private com-panies of the identity of those seeking access to financial and other sensitive information.

University Libraries helps preserve published recordsUniversity Libraries joins the HathiTrust, a partnership of major academic and re-search libraries collaborating to build a digital library initiative. As members, Tech students, faculty, and staff will have access to more than 3 million public domain books. Special access is available for users who are blind or visually impaired.

Former commandant Musser diesU.S. Air Force retired Maj. Gen. Stanton R. Musser, who served as commandant of the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets (VTCC) from 1989 to 1999, died. Musser served two tours in Vietnam, flying a total of 263 combat missions. He was also assigned to the U.S. Air Force Aerial Demonstra-tion Squadron, the Thunderbirds. Upon retiring from the Air Force, Musser took over VTCC, retiring as what was then the longest-serving commandant in the uni-versity’s history. Under his leadership, the corps, which was near extinction, experi-enced its first period of sustained growth in several decades.

Class rings get an extended lifeFor the first time ever, Virginia Tech class rings in the 2014 series contain recycled gold from earlier class rings that were donated by Tech alumni. The “Hokie Gold” legacy pro-

gram is spearheaded by Class of 1964 alum-ni, and the gold is melted at the university’s Kroehling Advanced Materials Foundry.

NOVEMBERTech hosts its own TEDx eventFaculty, students, and alumni present ideas for inventing the future at the university’s first TEDxVirginiaTech event. Twenty-one speakers, each a thought-leader in his or her own right, share ideas, insights, and inspiration centered on the theme “know-ing.” The speakers come from more than 200 people nominated to present.

Exemplary departments win recognition The College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences sweeps the 2012 University Exemplary Department or Program Awards. Two programs within the School of Education are chosen — the Arts and Humanities Programs and the Higher Ed-ucation Program — and the Department of English is selected for the second year in a row.

Tech helps make Blacksburg a good place for familiesFor the second year in a row, Blacksburg is named the most family-friendly communi-ty in the country, which strengthens Tech’s ability to attract and retain high-caliber faculty and staff. The recognition by www.homes.com cites the presence of Virginia Tech and numerous economic opportuni-ties as reasons for the top designation.

Swiss villa gets facelift, expansionVilla Maderni, which houses the university’s Center for European Studies and Architec-ture in Riva San Vitale, Switzerland, under-goes a construction and renovation project to improve the facilities and expand the

residential and academic space. The plans include the construction of 6,200 square feet of new space and the renovation of 5,200 square feet of existing space.

Cusimano takes over treasurer dutiesJohn Cusimano, associate treasurer at Virginia Tech, is named university treasur-er. Cusimano succeeds Ray Smoot, who retired in July after serving as university treasurer and chief executive officer of the Virginia Tech Foundation.

Lavery Hall is officially dedicatedThe university dedicates Lavery Hall, named in honor of former Virginia Tech president William E. Lavery, who died in 2009. During Lavery’s tenure from 1975 to 1987, two of the university’s signature facilities were developed: the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine and the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center.

DECEMBERResearch ranking risesThe university’s $450 million in research expenditures for fiscal year 2011 moves it up three places to No. 41 in the nation, according to the National Science Foun-dation. Tech remains the top research uni-versity in Virginia and the only Virginia institution in the top 50. Autism center gets underwayThe Virginia Tech Center for Autism Research is established in the College of Science with Angela Scarpa, an associate professor of psychology, as its first director. Scarpa says there are about 10 centers of excellence for autism research in the coun-try, and “we believe we can take a place among them.”


30

JANUARYGot milk? Hokie cows doVirginia Tech Dining Services partners with the Department of Dairy Science to offer “Virginia Tech Milk” in D2 at Dietrick Hall. Students harvest the milk on campus from the herd of dairy cows at Virginia Tech’s Dairy Center and it is then pasteurized at the James River Department of Agribusiness. Dining centers have been using meats purchased from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ Meat Sci-ence Center for more than two years, and the university’s Kentland Farm provides local produce.

Schurig announces retirementDr. Gerhardt G. Schurig, dean of the Vir-ginia-Maryland Regional College of Veter-inary Medicine since 2004, announces he will step down from his position during the summer of 2013. Schurig first joined the veterinary college faculty in 1978. A professor and veterinary immunologist, he is one of the world’s leading experts on brucellosis. Before serving as dean, he was the college’s associate dean for research and graduate studies, director of the Institute for Biomedical and Public Health Sciences, and a senior researcher and former director of the Center for Molecular Medicine and Infectious Diseases.

University maintains best values rankingsVirginia Tech once again earns a place on Kiplinger’s Personal Finance list of the 100 best values in public education. The rank-ing cites four-year colleges and universities that combine outstanding education with economic value. Since the ranking began in 2006, Kiplinger’s has included Virgin-ia Tech each year. In February, Tech also makes it into similar rankings released by the Princeton Review.

Business college gets a new leaderThe university announces that Robert T. Sumichrast, dean of the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia, will take over as dean of the Pamplin College of Business on July 1, 2013, succeeding Rich-ard E. Sorensen, who will retire after 31 years on the job. Sumichrast began his fac-ulty career at Tech in 1984, where he taught for almost 20 years, including four years as Pamplin’s associate dean for graduate and international programs. He left in 2003 to become dean of the E.J. Ourso College of Business at Louisiana State University.

FEBRUARYNorth End Center tenants move inNine Virginia Tech administrative depart-ments relocate to the new North End Cen-ter. Located adjacent to campus between Turner Street and North Main Street, the facility increases efficiencies through space and funding consolidations and by providing better services for students, staff, faculty, and university customers. Former commandant Acuff dies Earl C. Acuff, commandant of the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets from 1973 to 1980, dies. He was 94. In 1969, Acuff served as deputy post commander at the U.S. Army Infantry School in Ft. Benning, Ga., and in 1970 he was asked to teach military science at Tech. In 1974, he was promoted to brigadier general and became comman-dant of the corps.

MARCHUpper Quad changes in the worksRecognizing the continuing growth of the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets, the Virgin-ia Tech Board of Visitors begins planning for an Upper Quad overhaul that will include replacing Brodie and Rasche halls and erecting the new Corps Leadership and Military Science Building. Lane Hall

will be placed on the National Registry of Historic Sites and steps will be taken to preserve it for decades to come. At the completion of the phased construction, Thomas and Monteith halls will be razed with no current plans for replacement.

Practice fields are named for supporterThe Virginia Tech football practice fields located between Lane Stadium and Cassell Coliseum are renamed the Steve Johnson Practice Fields in recognition of the accomplishments and philanthropy of alumnus Steve Johnson, of Bristol, Va. A standout tight end for the Hokies in the mid- and late 1980s, Johnson played for the Dallas Cowboys and New England Pa-triots, and he currently serves as president and owner of Bristol, Va.-based Johnson Commercial Development.

ICTAS building gains new monikerVirginia Tech renames the headquarters building of its Institute for Critical Technol-ogy and Applied Science in honor of Hugh and Ethel Kelly in recognition of his pio-neering work in telecommunications and her extraordinary philanthropic support. Hugh Kelly, who died in 1989, worked at AT&T’s Bell Laboratories, and played im-portant roles in groundbreaking projects. Ethel Kelly, who died in 2012, generously supported the College of Engineering as a way of honoring her husband’s legacy.

Tech athlete wins third national titleAlexander Ziegler, a senior business ad-ministration major from Germany who already holds back-to-back NCAA titles in the hammer throw, captures yet another national championship, this time in the weight throw.

Timeline


31

APRILDoctoral student takes engineering abilities to TVA mechanical engineering doctoral student appears on the Discovery Channel reality television competition show “Big Brain Theory: Pure Genius,” which focuses on using logic and design to crack different engineering-related problems. Amy Elliott, of Fayetteville, Tenn., finishes second out 10 contestants on the eight-week show.

Conservation leadership earns recognitionThe Office of Energy and Sustainability is honored with a 2013 Gold Governor’s En-vironmental Excellence Award, recognizing environmental and conservation leadership in two categories: sustainability and land conservation. This is the fourth such award in the past six years for the university.

University names performance hall for two couplesThe Center for the Arts’ performing hall will be known as the Street and Davis Performance Hall in honor of two couples — Nicholas and Fay Street of Bristol, Va., and William C. “Jack” and Sandra Davis of Blacksburg, Va. — in recognition of their philanthropic support of the center’s construction. The Davises served on the National Campaign Steering Committee for the university’s past fundraising cam-paign. Jack Davis is executive director of the university’s Virginia Center for Civil War Studies. The Streets also served on the campaign’s National Campaign Steering Committee, and have served on many oth-er boards and committees.

University’s efforts to reduce drinking earn recognitionVirginia Tech’s Party Positive campaign aimed at reducing high-risk drinking wins top honors from the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, a lead organization for the student affairs profes-

sion worldwide. Party Positive emphasizes knowledge, planning, accountability, prac-ticality, and moderation.

Ghosh takes over outreach and international affairs postGuru Ghosh, Virginia Tech’s associate vice president for international affairs since 2011, becomes its new vice president for outreach and international affairs, replacing John E. Dooley, who became chief execu-tive officer of the Virginia Tech Foundation. Ghosh has nearly 20 years of experience in higher education administration across units with various responsibilities, and he takes over a unit that will play a critical role in the university’s emphasis on global inter-dependence as part of its strategic plan.

MAYSteger announces retirement; search committee formsVirginia Tech President Charles W. Steger announces his intention to step down as university president. In response, Board of Visitors Rector Mike Quillen appoints a search committee to assist in finding the university’s 16th president. Steger, who has been president for 14 years, will remain until the search concludes and his replace-ment begins work. (See other sections of this report for more on Steger’s accom-plishments at Tech.)

New general education curriculum gets first look A draft of a plan to revise the university’s general education curriculum for under-graduate students is made available for the community to review and provide feedback. Following calls for change to the current Curriculum for Liberal Education, the “Proposal for an Integrated General Education Curriculum at Virginia Tech” emerges from a series of discussions held by faculty, students, and staff over the past three years. The proposal recommends that students take at least 33 credit hours to-

ward their general education requirements, including 12 credit hours in the area of discourse, nine credit hours in quantitative and computational thinking, and 12 credit hours in integrated studies.

JUNETech helps veterans find workVirginia Tech becomes certified by the Vir-ginia Values Veterans program, a Virginia Department of Veterans Services program designed to help companies hire and retain military veterans. As the number of veterans returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan and to the workforce has increased in recent years, Tech has expanded its efforts to help veterans find employment at the university.

Translational medicine program gains BOV approvalThe Board of Visitors approves creation of a new doctorate in translational biolo-gy, medicine, and health, the first major life science program emanating from the university’s new strategic plan. The inter-disciplinary program will emphasize the concept of translational medicine — the transformation of scientific discoveries into diagnostics, therapeutics, and health-pro-moting behaviors and policies.

Med school draws national conference to RoanokeThe Virginia Tech Carilion School of Med-icine and Research Institute, in collabora-tion with the Jefferson College of Health Sciences, wins a bid to host the fifth Col-laborating Across Borders (CAB V) con-ference in Roanoke in September 2015. The event is the premier North American conference on educating and implement-ing effective health-care teams. CAB V is expected to draw 1,200 participants for the three-day event.


32

University Highlights

University Financial Highlights

University Highlights

2008-09 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13

Operating revenues $ 684.5 $ 715.1 $ 780.7 $ 832.4 $ 900.0 Operating expenses 970.1 967.3 1,025.5 1,076.3 1,155.5 Operating loss (2) $ (285.6) $ (252.2) $ (244.8) $ (243.9) $ (255.5) Non-operating revenues and expenses (2) 299.0 291.8 324.2 279.3 296.0 Other revenues, expenses, gains or losses 46.1 90.1 48.8 76.6 105.8 Net increase (decrease) in net assets $ 59.5 $ 129.7 $ 128.2 $ 112.0 $ 146.3

Invested in capital assets, net of related debt $ 669.7 $ 734.9 $ 794.6 $ 867.3 $ 994.3 Restricted $ 113.1 $ 135.3 $ 137.0 $ 156.0 $ 158.2 Unrestricted $ 136.2 $ 178.5 $ 245.3 $ 265.6 $ 282.6

Total university assets (1) $ 1,429.5 $ 1,654.0 $ 1,844.3 $ 2,046.0 $ 2,211.1 Capital assets, net of accumulated depreciation (1) $ 972.2 $ 1,095.5 $ 1,196.6 $ 1,339.5 $ 1,519.0 Facilities-owned gross square feet 8,946 9,011 9,166 9,276 10,078 Facilities-leased square feet 858 863 913 871 1,183

Number of awards received 2,384 2,516 2,400 2,589 2,272 Value of awards received $ 232.3 $ 312.4 $ 274.0 $ 294.1 $ 271.1 Research expenditures reported to NSF (3) $ 396.7 $ 398.2 $ 450.1 $ 454.4 N/A

Gifts and bequests received $ 65.1 $ 86.9 $ 98.5 $ 67.9 $ 77.0 Expended in support of the university $ 124.8 $ 126.5 $ 124.4 $ 135.5 $ 146.0 Total assets and managed funds $ 942.1 $ 1,023.6 $ 1,155.1 $ 1,210.7 $ 1,302.7

Owned by Virginia Tech Foundation (VTF) $ 410.7 $ 452.7 $ 541.0 $ 536.7 $ 594.1 Owned by Virginia Tech 35.6 44.4 52.7 51.6 59.6 Managed by VTF under agency agreements 5.8 6.0 7.0 6.5 7.0 Total endowments supporting the university $ 452.1 $ 503.1 $ 600.7 $ 594.8 $ 660.7

Number of students receiving selected types of financial aid Loans 12,085 12,896 13,133 13,081 12,506 Grants, scholarships, and waivers (5) 18,406 27,134 27,469 19,535 19,762 Employment opportunities 8,734 8,514 9,007 9,331 9,935

Total amounts by major category Loans $ 128.0 $ 139.9 $ 147.0 $ 157.2 $ 154.5 Grants, scholarships, and waivers 134.2 155.7 174.2 185.4 192.0 Employment opportunities 62.0 63.4 69.5 71.2 76.7 Total financial aid $ 324.2 $ 359.0 $ 390.7 $ 413.8 $ 423.2

2008-09 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13

Total Applications Received (Includes Transfers) Undergraduate 23,351 23,781 22,942 23,736 23,101 Graduate 8,457 9,397 9,190 9,465 9,544 Offers as a Percentage of Applications Undergraduate (freshmen only) 64.0 65.3 65.1 64.8 69.0 Graduate 37.3 34.1 33.4 33.3 31.2 New Enrollment as a Percentage of Offers Undergraduate (freshmen only) 43.1 38.5 41.6 40.1 40.7 Graduate 62.9 63.6 60.9 61.1 62.5 Enrollment by Classification Undergraduate 23,567 23,558 23,690 23,700 23,859 Graduate and first professional 7,172 7,312 7,316 7,236 7,228 Enrollment by Campus Blacksburg campus 28,259 28,432 28,687 28,650 28,836 Northern Virginia Center 1,107 1,077 1,078 1,040 1,018 Other off-campus locations 1,373 1,361 1,241 1,246 1,233 Enrollment by Residence Virginia 21,337 21,557 21,475 21,371 21,478 Other states 7,168 7,047 7,198 7,198 6,975 Other countries 2,234 2,266 2,333 2,367 2,634 Degrees Conferred Undergraduate 5,308 5,523 5,705 5,825 5,604 Graduate and first professional 1,940 2,038 2,045 2,163 2,041 Full-time instructional faculty 1,369 1,364 1,306 1,368 1,422 Other faculty and research associates 1,761 1,913 1,826 1,954 2,083 Part-time, temporary faculty (P14 faculty) 229 224 273 264 249 Support staff 3,816 3,603 3,461 3,449 3,509 Total faculty and support staff 7,175 7,104 6,866 7,035 7,263 Percent of instructional faculty tenured 61.9 62.8 61.9 61.7 61.1

For the years ending June 30, 2008—12 (all dollars are in millions; square feet in thousands)

(1) The university adopted the new Governmental Accounting Standard Board (GASB) reporting model in fiscal year 2002 as required by GASB Statement Number 35, Basic Financial Statement — and Management’s Discussion and Analysis — for Public Colleges and Universities.

(2) The university will always be expected to show an operating loss since significant recurring revenues are shown as non-operating. Major revenue sources reported as non-operating include state appropriations, gifts, and investment income. These revenue sources are used for general operations in support of the learning, discovery, and engagement missions of the university.

(3) Total research expenditures reported to the National Science Foundation were not available at publication date.

(4) Amounts for fiscal years 2008 and 2009 reflect any applicable restatements

(5) Grants, scholarships, and waivers for FY2010 and FY2011 include undergraduate Virginia residents who received ARRA tuition mitigation grants.

Revenues, Expenses, and Changes in Net Assets (1)

Student Admissions

University Net Assets (1)

Total Student Enrollment (head count)

Assets and Facilities

Faculty and Staff

Sponsored Programs

Virginia Tech Foundation

Endowments (At Market Value)

Student Financial Aid (4)

Virginia Tech Board of VisitorsMichael Quillen, Rector William B. Holtzman

George Nolen, Vice Rector John C. Lee IV

Michele L. Duke Suzanne S. Obenshain

Nancy V. Dye Deborah Petrine

William D. Fairchild III John G. Rocovich Jr.

Cordel L. Faulk Dennis H. Treacy

B. Keith Fulton Paul W. Rogers

Sarah Karpanty Faculty Representative

Sue Teel Staff Representative

Nicholas Onopa Undergraduate Student Representative

Robyn Jones Graduate Student Representative

Kim O’Rourke Secretary to the Board

Senior Administrative Personnel Charles W. Steger President

Mark G. McNamee Senior Vice President and Provost

Sherwood G. Wilson Vice President for Administration

Thomas C. Tillar Vice President for Alumni Relations

Elizabeth A. Flanagan Vice President for Development and University Relations

William T. Lewis Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion

M. Dwight Shelton Jr. Vice President for Finance and Chief Financial Officer

Karen P. DePauw Vice President and Dean for Graduate Education

Scott F. Midkiff Vice President for Information Technology

James R. Bohland Interim Vice President and Executive Director, National Capital Region

Guru Ghosh Vice President for Outreach and International Affairs

Robert Walters Vice President for Research

Patricia A. Perillo Vice President for Student Affairs

Virginia Tech Foundation John E. Dooley Chief Executive Officer

Deans Alan Grant College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

A. Jack Davis College of Architecture and Urban Studies

Richard Benson College of Engineering

Sue Ott Rowlands College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences

Paul Winistorfer College of Natural Resources and Environment

Richard E. Sorensen Pamplin College of Business

Lay Nam Chang College of Science

Gerhardt Schurig Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine

Tyler Walters University Libraries

Prepared by theOffice of University Relations

Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061

VT/1213/14M/UR2013-0109/EL

Virginia Tech does not discriminate against employees, students, or applicants on the basis of age, color, disability, gender, national origin, political affiliation, race, religion, sexual orientation, genetic information, veteran status, or any other basis protected by law. Anyone having questions concerning discrimination or accessibility should contact the Office of Equity and Access.

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Documents

Paths to New Horizons - Virginia Tech · for inventing our future, embodied in the strategic plan “A Plan for a New Horizon: Envisioning Virginia Tech 2012-2018.” Looking back,